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Ever since I learned how to us PS I have just made selections and edited from that. Everything is fine. What am I possibly missing by not using the Quick Mask option, however. To me, it seems like it's just the same thing as a simple selection but with a redish mask over the non selected areas. Am I missing something by not using that option.
Not really. Missing something. You discover as you go on.
A selection is the opposite of a mask.
selection: do something on the area I selected
mask: do something, but not on what I masked.
quickmask can be handy for making switching between selections and masks. The mask can be seen, a selection only shows marching ants, and when there is partial transparancy, you can guess what your selection covers as the ants show 50% opaque/transparant.
Suppose you have to make a perfect selection of a wine-glass with shadow on a whithe cloth. You can start with dragging a selection that is a bit too large, and then with soft brushes, you paint on the mask, making the brushes smaller and smaller as you go on.
You can change the colour of the rubylith, you can invert the mask, and you can paint with the opposite colour to correct when you were you couldn't walk the line.
much fun in there.
but don't forget to save'em.
personally, I proceed as said: a rough selection (when you start with a QM from nothing, PS can act bizarre) and then masking.
I rarely use quickmask actually, I usually jump right to layer masks (although they work the same).
The real advantage is the paintability as toxin said. You can use any painting tool or filter that effects pixels to change the mask. It makes for a more forgiving non-linear process of selecting areas. Something else that's nice about it is that it make partial selections much simpler. By than I mean you can make something that is only half selected or 35% selected (like feathering with 100% control of where it's feathered). So making fades and transitions is much simpler using masking than using selections.
Quick mask is basically a temporary alpha channel. Its the same as selecting something and saving it under the channels palette. You can do the same things with both, like 'painting' your selecting and applying filters to them. I use it when i dont want or need to save a full blown channel. Its just a quick way of doing it, hence the name.
Thanks everyone. Maybe I'll start using it a few times "just because." The fun part of PS is that there is so much there you can't help but learn something new. [righton]
I rarely use quickmask actually, I usually jump right to layer masks (although they work the same).
Same with me. Quick Mask might be useful for some people, but not for me. I think that once you get more experienced with the other tools, that you totally forget about it. The last time I used it was probably 2 years ago.
Quick Mask vs. simple selections 
Linear Mode
